poppy harlow. >> and i'm jim sciutto. it's friday, but still some news coming up in the next few days. a record week of early ballots cast already, though overshadowed by a record shattering day, another one, of new coronavirus infections. as the nation battles this growing health crisis, both candidates heading to critical battleground states today all hit hard by this pandemic. nearly 90,000 new coronavirus infections reported on thursday, nearly 1,000 americans died. experts warn that death rates could triple, you heard that right, triple by mid-january. >> and this is how fast the virus is spreading. it took 98 days for the u.s. to reach a million covid cases, but in just the last two weeks the u.s. has seen another million cases. all of this just four days before the nation decides who will win the white house. let's begin this hour with our

senior medical correspondent elizabeth cohen. good morning. the numbers are going in completely the wrong direction and i think that really lays it out that it took almost 100 days to get to a million cases at first and now it's just taking two weeks to get a million more cases. >> that's right, poppy. i think when you see this map that we have coming up that it will show you sort of why this is happening. let's take a look at this map. what you are seeing is a sea of orange and dark red. those are the states that the number of people with covid is going up. the dark red is where they're going up at an especially fast rate. but in 43 states the number of covid cases is going up. in the yellow states just five of them the numbers are holding steady, in the green states just two of them the numbers are going in the right direction. so in 43 states the numbers are going in the wrong direction. now let's take a look at just one day. let's take a look at yesterday. records set in just one day. nine states hit their record

highs for the number of people with covid. nine states highest number ever people with covid. in 17 states they hit their highs for hospitalizations. more hospitalizations than ever in the pandemic. and in one day 971 deaths. i want to emphasize that last number because sometimes we hear covid deniers saying, oh so people get sick, it's no big deal, it's like a bad deal, you get over t but people aren't really dying in big numbers. 971 americans dying in one day is an enormous number. if you think that's not a big number, then you don't have a heart. poppy, jim? >> ask those people's families whether they think that's a big number. >> right. imhe is one of these groups that does modeling of where this pandemic is heading and some of their recent projections have been pretty accurate. there is a new one, what does it tell us? >> so that one looks at how many deaths we could have by

february. if we continue doing what we're doing, versus if we decrease social distancing measures, masks, that sort of thing. so let's take a look. the most likely projection if we continue doing what we're doing, still incredibly high. nearly 400,000 deaths by february 1st. so, in other words, that rate has accelerated. if we get worse at this, fewer people wear masks, fewer people social distance, that goes to more than 513,000 deaths. if you look at the difference between that number, that's the number of lives that could be saved if people did what they're supposed to do. when we hear covid deniers say i'm not going to wear a mask or social distance, basically you're killing all of those people, the more than 100,000 people in that number. >> thank you very much. the numbers are terrifying and you put them in important perspective for us.

okay. so now to politics and the race for the white house. both campaigns crisscrossing especially the midwest in this final push to election day. >> you can tell where they think the race is close and what they need by where they spend that time in those final days. cnn's miguel marquez and bill weir are in two of those states this morning. let's begin with miguel in michigan outside of today's rally for president trump. miguel, this will be the first of three rallies taking place across the midwest today. who are we going to see out there and where? >> reporter: yeah, this is oakland, michigan, this is just north of detroit, the all important suburbs, right, in 2018 during the midterms the suburbs were so important. tons and tons of votes here. it's interesting the president comes to this county because he lost this county to hillary clinton in 2016. i want to show you how big the crowd is right now, it's several hours before the president gets here, it is very, very cold out, and there are hundreds and hundreds of trump supporters out

here waiting for him right now. vice president -- he will then make two other stops across the midwest, vice president biden and barack obama will appear tomorrow in michigan as well, gives you a sense of just how critical this state is for both campaigns. state says that about 5 million michiganders will cast votes in this election, they believe about two thirds, the majority of those votes, will be in by election day. they say if you still want to vote, your absentee ballot, do not put it in the mail, drop it off at a drop box or county clerk's office or city clerk's office or you can always vote on election day. back to you guys. >> miguel, hand warmers, this he sell hand warmers in gas stations there. go get them, crinkle them up and put them in the end of your gloves and you will be fine. thanks for the reporting for us. from there let's go to bill weir who knows a thing or two about cold, who is in wisconsin. good afternoon. joe biden also hitting several

midwest states including wisconsin. what do we expect today? >> reporter: yes, it is on wisconsin on 2020, the ten electoral votes up for grabs here so key to both campaigns. evidenced by their visits. as you mentioned, joe biden is coming in at the end of a midwestern swing that will also take him to iowa and minnesota, in milwaukee it sounds like he's going to be focused there. it's interesting the contrast in styles. the biden campaign careful not to announce in advance, they don't want too big of a crowd in the pandemic. opposite story for president trump, he's going up to green bay, he had to cancel a stop up there in the home of the packers when he had coronavirus, if you will remember, so sort of a makeup stop there as well. doubtful that his bout with the disease will change his attitudes towards masks and those voters as well up there. a lot of people in this state see these sort of super spreader events as a last straw for biden voters especially. as far as people who are quarantined or hospitalized, the

wisconsin election commission had to make concessions, you can have an agent take your id and ballot and go vote for you. they're making concessions for that. also planning to overstaff polling places in case there are illnesses and people can't show up on election day. in fact, 200 national guardsmen are ready to mobilize, jim and poppy, but not in uniform, just purely as helpers in case there is a big sick-in on election day. >> well, remember, it wasn't long ago the concern was, right, that the pandemic would prevent a lot of people from voting, but then you look at those numbers there, record setting at this point. bill weir, thanks very much. republicans picked up a big legal win in minnesota. federal appeals court ruled thursday that ballots mailed in in that state must be received no later than 8:00 p.m. on election day. >> right. so that decision cuts off what was a week-long window after election day where state officials were planning to receive ballots, open them and count them in case they had been delayed in the mail.

our kristen holmes joins us now. good morning. i was listening last night to minnesota senator amy klobuchar explain the urgency here to our chris cuomo, basically telling people this morning in minnesota do not mail your ballots in at this point. >> reporter: good morning, poppy and jim. that's absolutely right. she's not the only one. we have heard from state official after state official who are sounding the alarm, warning people that if you are sitting on an absentee ballot, you are planning on slipping it into the mail, do not do that. it is a risk. it might not be counted. the best thing you can possibly do is drop it off if you are able at a drop off location, those are open until 3:00 p.m. on election day. now, let's talk about this decision. an appeals court ruling that that week-long extension that would allow for the late arrival of those absentee ballots went against state law. here is what the appeals court said, however well intentioned and appropriate from a policy perspective in the context of a pandemic during a presidential election, it is not the province of the state executive official

to rewrite the state's election code. there is no pandemic exception to the constitution. and they also ruled in that that all votes that came in after 8:00 p.m. on election day had to be segregated and not counted. to this sets up for two things, one, a possible situation of two vote tales in minnesota at some point and more legal troubles or having these votes tied up in court because one thing that is very unclear, if i mailed my ballot and i live in minnesota yesterday or two days ago or three days ago, with the thought that i had an extra week that this vote could be processed, what happens to my vote if it comes in after 8:00 p.m. on election day? and the court they didn't rule on that. they actually kicked that decision back down to the district court. so there is a lot of unknown here. we heard from the secretary of state that this could potentially affect hundreds of thousands of ballots. here is what senator klobuchar said about that. >> as the people in minnesota whose got those over 500,000 ballots, that that's over

500,000 people no matter where they are right now, that they not mail them in in the morning. they're going to think they can, they're going to think they can do it right up until election day, but under this court ruling right now they can't. what they should do is take their mail-in ballot to a drop off box or go vote themselves. >> reporter: so the one thing to keep in mind here this comes just a day after the supreme court ruled in pennsylvania and north carolina that they didn't want to step in this close to an election on those extensions. >> well, why do drop boxes matter? here is a reminder why having them matters. >> there you go. >> if the ballot won't be counted and there's still real disputes about it, it's an option. kristen holmes, thanks very much. let's speak to someone at the center of one of these battles, he is the pennsylvania attorney general josh shapiro. thanks for taking the time this morning. >> good to be with you, jim and poppy. >> so the court came on your side in effect allowing ballots to be counted if they arrive in pennsylvania up to three days

after the election. however, let's be honest here, that battle is not over. if president trump loses pennsylvania we should expect him to challenge that in the supreme court, i imagine, so i wonder how you're plea pairirep that. >> look, we expect donald trump to challenge everything. he's been doing that here in pennsylvania for the last several months. the good news is, jim, we're winning every step of the way to secure, protect and defend legal eligible votes here in pennsylvania and make sure that they're counted. he's been attacking our voting laws time and time again and we've been winning each and every time. look, we already have more than 2 million pennsylvanians who have voted. we've tried to provide clarity for them about making a plan to vote between now and leading up to election day. donald trump is trying to sow chaos and confusion into the proce process. the good news is the voters are really drowning him out. >> mr. attorney general, you're betting that if this does get

kicked back up to the supreme court where it's already been once in the last week or so that you're going to win out because of the purcell principle, right? that essentially you think is on your side here. not getting into the dynamics of that but into your strategy, how do you respond to justice alito's dissent where he wrote the court's handling of the important constitutional issue could lead to serious post-election problems? it sounds like he's preparing for it to come back up to them, so if it does what's your strategy? >> look, i realize this is really confusing and there is a lot of legal stuff back and forth, but actually the issue is pretty simple and you cited the purcell principle and it's also why pennsylvania's situation is different than minnesota that you spoke about just a moment ago. this is a state election law that has been interpreted by our state's highest court, our pennsylvania supreme court, that says if ballots are postmarked before the end of election day and received up until friday at 5:00 they could be counted.

and the purcell principle, which you cited, makes clear that federal courts ought to give great deference to state law when it comes to these matters of election. now, steps have been taken here in pennsylvania to ensure that these ballots can be sort of segregated or set aside and then counted to make sure that it doesn't confuse broader processes. we recognize that donald trump and his enablers may want to use this to their advantage, but my job is to make sure that all ballots are defended in pennsylvania and these votes are recorded. just check our track record. we're 6-0 in every single time donald trump has gone to court to try and undermine the will of the people of pennsylvania, we have fought back and won. if i have to do it again, whether at the u.s. supreme court or the state supreme court, we'll do it, and we'll win. >> given the importance of mail-in ballots this election and many pennsylvanians have taken advantage of that option this election, how has the u.s. postal service performed?

have you seen any impact from the restrictions, the attempts to cut resources that we were reporting on a number of weeks ago? >> i didn't mean and poppy, as you know, there was a national lawsuit that was filed by me, by my office, joined by other states to try to get the u.s. postal service to roll back the illegal changes they made in july, which disrupted our mail service, disrupted the flow of prescription drugs to veterans and paychecks for small businesses. the good news is we won that lawsuit and the postal service was required to roll back the changes and let the postal workers just get back to work and do the job that they know how to do. unfortunately it was tinge ld with by louie dejoy and some of the other leadership there. the challenge we have seen since we won that lawsuit is that the postal service in some cases has made the changes they were legally required to make and in other cases they haven't. it's why i went to court and asked a federal judge for an

independent monitor to keep an eye on louie dejoy because frankly he can't be trusted. while mail service was largely gotten back to normal there are some examples where it haven't which is why my guidance to voters over these final days is if you have your mail-in ballot drop them off at a drop box. i think that that is the prudent step you need to take. obviously we need to have bro broader conversations about the postal services and louie dejoy and donald trump's meddling in it and we have to get that back working again, but right now we need to have an election and we need to stop any attempts by people to slow the process or stop the process and that's what i'm doing in pennsylvania. >> it's amazing you can't trust something as simple as the mail. it's just amazing. >> yeah, jim, it is. and this is part of a broader narrative where the president and his enablers have attacked all the discussions that the american people have come to rely on and trust and it's one of the things we battle every day in the courts. look, the rule of law needs to apply fairly and equally across

the board, you know, no matter what you look like, who you love, who you pray to or where you come from. similarly, everyone needs to have confidence in our institutions of government. they've been under attack, we're fighting back. good news is we're winning. we're having an election. people are voting. and i believe when all is said and done and the dust clears donald trump's efforts to try to undermine these institutions and our laws will fail. >> pennsylvania attorney general josh shapiro, we know it's a busy few days or weeks ahead for you. thanks for your time this morning. >> hopefully just days, but thank you very much. i appreciate it. just in, over 9 million people have cast their ballots early in texas, that is more than the total turnout for the state in 2016. today is the last day to cast your early vote in texas. we will take you there and to other key states. and as the nation sees record srjs of new coronavirus infections, are governors going to step up restrictions? we will speak to kentucky's governor next. ♪

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welcome back. kentucky is now one of 43 states reporting an increase in new coronavirus infections, kentucky just surpassed 1 0 100,000 toes infections and is reporting it's highest seven-day average for new infections. joining us is kentucky governor andy beshear. >> thanks for having me. >> your state's seven day rolling average for new cases spiking really since the start of this month. you said that renewing lockdowns is not the answer. what is the answer to get this under control in your state? >> well, just like in most areas of the country, we are seeing a third escalation in kentucky right now that is really concerning. the pace of the way paces are growing is more exponential than we have seen in the past, our hospitalizations are going up,

individuals in the icus are going up and sadly we are losing more people. my response to this has always been based on advice from public health experts. i agreed from the beginning we were going to listen to those who knew how to deal with infectious disease. thus far, whether it is on the federal or the state level i have gotten the same advice and that's what kentucky has some of the strongest restrictions currently in place in the country. we have a mask mandate, we have significant capacity restrictions at restaurants and bars and a curfew for them. we only have about half of people this office-based businesses going in. ore gatherings are ten or less and those are significantly more stringent than our neighbors. but two a person, the public health experts say right now that the problem isn't that we don't have the right rules in place, it's that people aren't following them. >> right. >> and the request he is does another mandate if people aren't following them well enough, does it actually get us where we want to go? because i think our effectiveness in fighting covid

is a pretty simple equation. >> yeah. >> the best rules and restrictions, practices and approach times the number of people that will follow them. so right now we are working on what we call a red zone reduction, which are our counties where we're seeing the most significant spike. and we're working on trying to bring together an entire community and give ownership to it. >> okay. >> so mayors, county judges, the school system, all of them together because we've got to have more buy in in this country to defeat this virus. >> understood. you know as well as me, particularly being a democratic governor in a red state, how partisan politics have infected the response to this, even the understanding of the seriousness of the outbreak. i'm sure you're familiar the president's son said yesterday, echoing a larger dismissal of the seriousness of the outbreak he, he said yesterday that deaths in the u.s. are almost nothing. you are one of 43 states seeing a spike this cases, what's your response to him? >> i've got 1,500 families that would disagree.

these are people that we love and we care about, there are fathers, mothers, grandparents, sisters, brothers, they are people that are so missed. i've talked to so many families that have lost someone to covid and they all say the same thing, the loss is real, please wear a mask so someone else doesn't have to go through this. and when you lose somebody during covid, i think even harder than outside of it because you can't see them as much as they are fighting for their lives and when they pass the funerals are different, too. this is hard on our communities and on our families and how about out of respect for them. the people of america, the families of america that are struggling, we treat it like it's real and we don't try to dismiss this loss. >> our viewers may not know that you and your family experienced this personally, you had to quarantine because of an ex poche tour coronavirus, but in another way as well.

they built a new security fence around the kentucky governor's mansion due to threats that were made to you and your family. a remarkable image for this time and here is the fence going up here. what do you attribute those threats to and the need for this kind of security? >> well, we've got divisions in america that threaten, i believe, our very country. we can't let each other become the entry when we have so many external threats between iran and china and north korea, yet i think because of politics and wanting to win we are even encouraging americans to hate each other and we are not to a person, to a leader, condemning these militia groups, these domestic terrorists the way that we should. they had the kidnapping plot against governor whitmer.

here in kentucky they walked right past the barriers that existed in the governor's mansion, they walked right up to the window pane on the other side of which my kids play, fully armed, heckling for me to dock out. listen, this he don't intimidate me, but i'm going to make sure that i take the precautions to protect my ten and 11-year-old and my entire family. listen, this is wrong. this is not what america is about, you don't get to threaten or terrorize your way into getting what you want. if the rest of us condemn it the way we should and the way that we have in the past, then i believe that what we are seeing, the rise of in this stuff, will go away. but it is a -- it is a real threat that exists out there, but at the same time what they want they're not going to get. i'm going to continue to do the right thing, i know governor whitmer is as well, we're going to continue to lead in a way that saves and protects lives and doesn't bend to the will of those that would use fear. >> well, i'm sorry you and your

family had to face that threat, i can only imagine seeing that on the other side of the window where my own children play. governor beshear, we wish you and your family, remarkable we have to say this in the year 2020, but we wish you safety. >> thank you very much and everybody out there, please be safe as well. all right. well, in-person early voting it ends today in several states including the state of georgia and texas. both have already set early voting records. we will take you there next. at dell technologies, we started by making the cloud easier to manage. but we didn't stop there. we made a cloud flexible enough to adapt to any size business. no matter what it does, or how it changes. and we kept going. so you only pay for what you use. because at dell technologies, we stop...at nothing. ♪

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welcome back.

and this breaking news out of texas, it's a big headline, that state has just surpassed the total number of votes cast there back in 2016. already four days to election day, another day of in-person voting, early voting to come, more than 9 million texans have cast their ballot. >> that's a huge number, jason carroll joins us in mansfield, texas, just outside of fort worth. good morning. >> reporter: huge number. everything is big in texas, poppy, what would one expect? we've seen enthusiasm -- we've seen enthusiasm on both sides, quite frankly, in terms of early voters, but democrats are better that those early votes are going to translate into a possibility that joe biden actually stands a chance here in the state of texas, can't even believe i'm saying t but i spoke to dallas' former mayor, a republican, who says basically that joe biden went from having no shot to

being a long shot to being a medium shot. he's actually endorsing joe biden, he said that's due to a number of factors, namely a change in demographics here in the state. he says the democrats are basically doing better in the suburbs, if you take a look at where we are here in tarrant county it's been reliably red for decades, now it's a little bit more purple, you have an influx of latino voters and young voters as well. we spoke to a young voter, 24 years old, lives in the area, her family has -- is very conservative and this go round she's voting for joe biden. >> i've never really been a major trump supporter but i think in this year of 2020 after covid and everything else that's been happening i think that that was kind of -- this year was really the turning point for me and i listened to some of the things that trump said and i educated myself a lot more and i think that this year just in general with everything that's going on has been the turning point for me to decide that i wanted to vote blue. >> reporter: so there you go.

dems putting time and money and effort into the state. kamala harris doing not one, not two, but three stops here in the state today. republicans saying that any chance of the state turning blue is wishful thinking but one thing cannot be argued and that is the enthusiasm we saw in the state for early voting. poppy, jim? >> we don't know. it's record turnout so far across the country. i don't think folks know at this point which way it's going to turn in multiple states, but it's quite a headline, quite a name. jason, thanks very much. now let's going to cnn's nick valensy in cobb county, georgia, outside atlanta. georgia is another state that's seeing big numbers, big lines, another one behind you there, early voting wraps up today. what are the numbers so far? >> reporter: long lines, that's what we expected to see here. not just because this is the last day of early voting after three weeks, but also because the impact a storm system had as it moved through here on

wednesday night at one point up to a million people across the state were without power and of 159 counties here in the state 15 of them were impacted having their polling sites even closed all together or delayed. we are told by the cobb county where we are at here an official saying one polling location of the 11 that they have in the county is running off of cellular hot spots, but they are able to make sure everyone gets in in a timely manner. here the wait time is an hour and a half, down from two hours earlier this morning. there are record breaking numbers here already in the state. 3.6 million early votes cast, shattering numbers we saw four years ago. in 2016 roughly 86% of the voters have already voted here so far this year. a lot at stake. joe biden hoping to become the first democratic presidential nominee to win the state in decades, also two vacant senate seats here that could determine the balance of who wins the majority in the senate. jim, poppy? >> nick valencia in cobb county,

georgia. thanks very much. be sure to join all of us for election night in america, our special coverage begins tuesday 4:00 eastern right here on cnn. we will be right back.

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welcome back. the u.s. has now recorded 90,000 new covid infections just on thursday, that's the nation's highest daily case count in the entire pandemic. >> and 43 states are now seeing an increase in their cases, nine states many across the midwest are breaking records at this point. illinois hitting another single-day record for infections for the second time this week. let's go to our adrienne broaddus she joins us this morning. good morning.

i mean, it has to be said this comes days before many people will go to the polls to vote. >> reporter: right. this virus is testing everyone in so many ways, poppy and jim. as you guys mentioned, the u.s. smashing records it didn't want to break, and here in the midwest an explosion of cases. health experts as well as governors across the midwest are sounding the alarm. way nt to narrow in on several midwest states that have seen a jump in positivities rates over the last few weeks. over the past few days i have told our viewers about wisconsin, but let's look at some of the other states, for example, south dakota, the positivity right there topping 46%, idaho 35%, iowa 29% and, like i mentioned in, wisconsin 27%. this has been the worst week yet so far for wisconsin. earlier in the week hitting a milestone it didn't want to mark, more than 210,000 new

coronavirus cases recorded throughout the pandemic. and they're raising the alarm in north dakota, too. that state's governor calling 21 counties high risk and sending this warning to families when it comes to planning for the holidays -- >> so we've got a difficult operating environment for the next two months because the natural rhythm that we have in our state and the natural rhythm of holidays in our country, we have seen in other countries where there have been holidays have occurred where surges have occurred after that, that this is going to be a really challenging time for us as a state and as a nation. >> reporter: so what does a challenging time mean? poppy and jim, it means saying yes to no. now is the time to say no to your friends and family if they weren't to get together for the holidays, like thanksgiving right around the corner. do something creative, maybe have thanksgiving in a box, cut

out your best recipes and send it to the friends you love. keep in mind, 971 people died yesterday. back to you. >> people with families, adrienne broaddus, thanks very much. well, this pandemic is getting worse as you just heard and for millions of americans their situation is getting economically more dire. why will congress not agree on a stimulus deal? ohio senator brown is here next. a capsule a day

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just like you watch over your best friend. another life-changing technology from abbott, so you don't wait for life. you live it. all right. another record shattered, early voting shattering past records in ohio. cnn's gary tuchman is standing by at the only early voting location in cuyahoga county. it's amazing how many states, we've talked about texas, we've talked about others, where and how are you seeing it in the state of ohio? >> reporter: that's right, jim. hundreds of voters surrounding this building despite the fact it's cold, blustery and has been raining. this is a battleground state, the polls show the presidential race is too close to call and it's also the ultimate

bellwether state. ohio has picked the winning presidential candidate for six decades straight, the last time it missed was 1960 when ohioans picked nixon over kennedy. ohio has only missed twice n 1960 and 1944 when ohio picked thomas dewy over fdr. there is lots of days to early vote here, today, tomorrow, sunday, monday, lots of hours, but only one location in each county. in vinton county, the most lightly populated county, 13,000 people, there's one location. in cuyahoga county, 1.2 million people, also one location and it makes it very difficult for a lot of people. how far did you come to get here today? >> we just live right over on the west side on west 58th. >> reporter: so how many minutes did it take you to get here? drive? >> ten. >> reporter: anyone come a long way to get here today. >> about a half an hour. >> reporter: in most states they have early voting in most

neighborhoods in the county. here only one location. >> we used to live at florida and they used to do it at all the city libraries. here it is only one location. >> reporter: you are good americans to be here in the cold. florida is also warmer, by the way. regarding the absentee they can arrive ten days after the election. the deadline for those absentee ballots to arrive is november 13th. >> folks, look it up show you know what the rules are, they vary from state-to-state. also in ohio right now, all these folks right now are voting without a stimulus deal passed. in ohio alone, hundreds of thousands who lost their jobs because of the pandemic are still out of work. with me is ohio senator sherrod brown. thank you for being here. >> thank you for having me.

>> 12 weeks in congress and no deal and increased biggering. and it's the american people of both parties that are losing right now. how do you explain to your constituents why they have to continue to go with no help from congress and congress has utterly failed to reach a deal for the people who put them in power. >> it's been 12 weeks since mcconnell showed interest. it's been much longer than that, since may since the house of representatives passed the bill. and in august, 600,000 people in my state of ohio alone lost their unemployment insurance -- their $600 a week unemployment -- >> did we lose the senator? let's take a break we'll come back on the other side and hopefully fix the technical blich. >> but we didn't stop there.

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. technology is working again. back with us is democratic senator of ohio, sherrod brown. we were talking about stimulus and the lack of a deal. i looked back last night at the book you wrote in 1999 called congress from the inside. you talk about the night you were sworn in for your sixth term in congress and reading the terms of fdr, the test of

progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of people who have much but it's whether we provide for those who have too little. is it not incumbent on you guys to make a deal for all those who have too little, imperfect as it may be. >> of course it's going to be imperfect. even when we passed the bill back in march it was imperfect. one study said 12 million people were kept out of poverty because of our -- what congress did. there's no reason we should -- we can do the same kinds of things. we should continue the $600 a week. we need to get help to small business. we need to get help to schools. as you and i talked off the air, poppy, we need to get help to schools and governments and there's no reason we shouldn't be able to do that. >> why keep waiting, senator? at this point, with so many more falling into poverty, why not take the $1.9 trillion counter

from the white house, i know the complaints about it on your side, take it, get it to the people and go back to the table? >> there's no signal that the white house, first of all, will -- i mean, the white house puts something out and pulls it back. senator mcconnell hasn't agreed to that. that's the basis of getting close to an agreement. but the white house said it and then changed its view. >> senator mcconnell said he would take it to the floor is my point. >> i don't know what that means. you may know back when we had the good package that kept people out of poverty, the only amount on the package was to strip away the $600 a week unemployment. we defeated that, barely, but i mean, they -- they haven't been serious, the house passes something and then reduces what it passes and it doesn't -- and continue to move and senator mcconnell just won't come to the

table in any serious way. all summer he kept saying i feel no sense of urgency as people lost their $600, schools struggled to open and didn't have the dollars to reconfigure classrooms and cacafeterias. >> the urgency now is not debatable. it's a tragedy for millions of americans that nothing has been done. as is the covid rate in the state of ohio. yesterday the highest number of cases in the state of ohio. is it time for at least partial lockdowns in some of the counties because the governor said 83 of your 88 counties are now considered high incident areas? >> yeah. a couple ohio river counties aren't but most of the rest of the state is. that's up to the governor and what they decide. i think there should be a statewide mask mandate but that's not in the cards apparently. the governor tries to do that and some right-wing republicans

filed articles of impeachment against him. i hope we go back right after the election with the election in the rear view mirror, as i hope it is, soon after the election and get serious about doing this. if not, when the democrats take over in january we will do a package for public education and for local governments and for small business and unemployed workers and prevent evictions. i'm hopeful that mcconnell will do something in november and december, and the president will settle down and play ball and get serious about negotiations. if not we'll do something bigger in january. >> that's a long ways. >> of course. we should have been doing this in august. of course. >> senator, let me ask you about fracking. it's a big issue for your state, a job creator for your state. it's not clear where joe biden stands on fracking, one thing that is clear is there would be fewer fracking jobs under a biden administration than a

trump administration. you said in 2012 about fracking it's a lot of jobs and prosperity, though you did note the environmental and health concerns you know how many jobs are tied to it in ohio. i'm wondering if you're concerned some of your consistents would lose their jobs? >> i saw that in 2012, we've seen what the companies do, come in eastern ohio, not densely populat populated, they hire many, many people from oklahoma and texas. you could -- when i went out to the fields you saw mostly license plates from out of state. they work for that while and then they're gone and they leave behind an incomplete infrastructure, shall we say. widened roads that the state didn't tax at the well head the way they should have. so state and local governments could get revenues to build what they needed to build.